Amendment 69: What You Need to Know About the "ColoradoCare" Single-Payer Health Care Measure
- December 22, 2015
Supporters of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act claim that it will reduce Colorado health care costs and health insurance premiums. Nonsense. Even economist Jonathan Gruber, an ObamaCare architect, estimated that it would increase premiums in Colorado’s individual market by 19 percent. Don’t be fooled when the businesses, bureaucrats, and non-profits who benefit from increasing your premiums choose to blame your higher costs on everything but the ObamaCare law.
READ MOREHaving someone else pay for your medical care is the most expensive way to pay for it because it adds insurer overhead costs to the cost of the actual service. Colorado’s private sector began switching to consumer directed health policies (CDHPs) when they became more widely available in 2003. CDHPs encourage cash pay- ment for inexpensive and predictable care. Health savings accounts (HSA) qualified plans save excess funds in tax-free accounts that accumulate until retirement.
READ MOREIf Medicaid were turned into a block grant program in which the federal government gave each state a set amount of money, it could improve patient care, restrain the growth in costs, reduce complexity and improve outcomes. Continue reading
READ MOREColo. SB 11-200 “proposes to create an unaccountable bureaucracy.” “The [Exchange] Board could … support legislation compelling exchange membership, payment of its fees/taxes on health insurance. … the bill allows the Exchange Board to create a monopoly insurance broker w/ unlimited taxing power. “
READ MORENote: the Fiscal note numbers referenced in this bill are from the March 18, 2009 Fiscal Note. The bill language refers to the unofficial preamended version of the bill as of March 20, 2009. For the purposes of this analysis, the main difference between the preamended version and the introduced version is that the limits of the buy-in program for the disabled were increased from 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level to 450 percent of the Federal Poverty Level.
READ MOREAmendment 42 would make minimum wages a Constitutional requirement in Colorado. At present, Colorado’s minimum wages are established by Federal law. If Amendment 42 passes, Colorado’s minimum wage would increase to $6.85 on January 1, 2007. Each year thereafter, the minimum wage would automatically be adjusted for inflation. According to the Amendment language, the adjustment for inflation shall be “as measured by the Consumer Price Index used for Colorado.” According to the language, the Amendment 42 minimum wage must be “paid to employees who receive the state or federal minimum wage.” It also requires that “no more than $3.02 an hour in tip income may be used to offset the minimum wage for employees who regularly receive tips.”
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